Engaging India is a weekly online column analysing the issues, trends and forces behind the business and politics shaping India and its impact on the world, which appears on FT.com India, a dedicated online section on India. Engaging India appears every Thursday morning exclusively on FT.com India and is written by Jo Johnson, the Financial Times’ South Asia bureau chief; Amy Yee, New Delhi correspondent; and Joe Leahy, Mumbai correspondent.

Paying villagers to dig holes and break stones is easier than undertaking the reforms that create sustainable jobs. Anyone who believed Rahul Gandhi’s elevation to the rank of Congress general secretary signalled a push to “reinvent and modernise” India’s ruling party will have been disappointed by his first initiative.